Mother of 5-year-old Liam Ramos would not take custody of him after father’s arrest in Minnesota: DHS

Liam Ramos—the 5-year-old boy who DHS said was abandoned by his illegal immigrant father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, when ICE tried to arrest the dad—is being held with his father in an immigration detention center. There has been outcry from Democrats over the case, where some have claimed that ICE set out to arrest the small child. However, DHS has now said that when agents made multiple attempts give Liam's mother custody of the child, she refused.

https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/2014701768551145831

"The child was ABANDONDED by his father, and the alleged mother REFUSED to take custody of her own child. Our law enforcement took care of the child, got him McDonald’s and played him his favorite music to comfort him. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," DHS said in a post on X.

Pastor Serigo Amezcua, who has been helping the couple, claimed that ICE agents were trying to give the child back to his mother, but neighbors told her not to come out of the house. “ICE agents were trying to use the baby to get her to come out of her house, but the neighbors … advised her not to do it,” the pastor said, per CNN. The pastor claimed the agents were using the child as “bait” in order to arrest the mother as well.

ICE has disputed the claim, and the acting executive associate director of ICE Enforcement, Marcos Charles, said, “My officers did everything they could to reunite him with his family.”

“I entered the home and the mother was distraught. She wanted Liam,” Superintendent Zena Stenvik said, per Fox 12. “She wanted to open the door, and I can’t even imagine as a mother myself how conflicted she must have been seeing … her husband standing in the driveway in handcuffs, saying, ‘don’t open the door,’ and also hearing her little one, and she could see the ICE agent standing there at the door.”

“I just can’t imagine as a mother what she was going through,” Stenvik added. “It was heartbreaking for me to hear her, and she looked up at me and said, ‘I don’t understand what’s happening. We’re not criminals.'"